Letters to the editor - July 19, 2013

Thursday

Jul 18, 2013 at 10:54 PM

His new worldFrom now on, a certain number of people will view George Zimmerman as guilty, even if he did nothing wrong.He will forever be viewed as a troublemaker by some. People will assume that he is always armed.He will stand out, no matter where he goes. There will be some neighborhoods that do not want him living there. He will be noticed when he walks down the street, and some might cross it to avoid his contact. There will be some employers who will not hire him, because of their perception. This discrimination will now follow him the rest of his life.Welcome to Trayvon Martin's world.Robert Ernst, Wilmington

I am amazed by the fact that local, state and federal officeholders do not follow how to effectively make necessary budget cuts in times of income shortfall, or in recessionary periods. In both small and large businesses, one of the first things to be cut is generally travel funding, unless the travel is critical to the business. Government officials on both sides of the aisle seem to have lost the ability to cut discretionary spending before cutting services to the public. Government officials have totally forgotten that they work for the public, and are paid by the public.The New Hanover County board needs to first look at discretionary spending opportunities such as travel budget cuts before cutting services.Nick Gutermuth, Wilmington

The Republican-held Congress recently passed a farm bill that included about $195 billion in subsidies to "farmers" (read: agribusiness) over 10 years, while at the same time eliminating food stamps and nutrition programs from the bill as unnecessary.Forty-seven million Americans receive food stamps. Nearly half are children under 18, and nearly 10 percent are impoverished seniors. Food stamps are often the difference between hunger and survival. This is how they choose to be identified.According to noted columnist Robert L. Borosage, Republicans will bring the government to a halt to defend against any tax hikes on millionaires, or to fend off the closing of corporate tax shelters. They will vote in lockstep to take the sequester cuts out of domestic programs, education, clean water and pre-school … to protect a Pentagon budget that remains the biggest source of waste, fraud and abuse in the federal government.Borosage observes that Rebublicans will lavish subsidies on agribusiness, while throwing children and seniors under the bus. Having stripped food stamps out of the farm bill entirely, they did not even have the common decency to pass any kind of food stamp provision separately.They haven't gotten around to getting a "consensus" on that. This is who they are.Rob Priddy, Shallotte